GEPRA Begins Agile Transformation

September 22, 2017853 Views

The PR & Marketing Communications Company Gepra is beginning its Agile transformation. One of the pioneers on the Georgian communications market, the company aims to enrich its service offering by migrating to innovative project management methodologies.

According to Gepra’s CEO, the company is starting to move to a more modern, flexible system – Agile. It is a versatile methodology that enables an organization to increase work profit efficiency while simultaneously lowering decision-making and project implementation times. Overall, it ensures an efficiency boost in both the development and implementation of innovative products and services.

“At this point, we are talking with a number of groups for implementing specific directions in the Agile methodology. We are currently down to choosing between Scrum and Kanban, and we’ll be making a final decision sometime in October,” – said Eka Zhvania, the CEO of Gepra.

The changes happening within the company are part of Gepra’s transformation strategy. The leader in PR and marketing communications in Georgia is planning a partial change in its profile.

According to statements from within the organization, the changes are sizable and represent their first case since 2007 where the transformations relate to the entire company, as opposed to only a number of certain services or products.

“A new business model has been developed, with more changes touching on our brand, positioning, and visual identity. The company structure for management and consulting fields has also gone through certain changes, along with top-to-bottom transformations underway for business processes and services,” – stated Eka Zhvania.

“The transformations that we started in Gepra are, first and foremost, the result of shifts we see on the global market. Trends are changing in ways that challenge even the largest companies. Long-term leaders of the PR field have begun their own restructuring processes in order to avoid defeat in the turbulent battle. More and more organizations turn their aims towards universal offerings, disagreeing with rendering services to self-serving businesses. Professional service providers in consulting have ceased separating various fields and products. Even Bain and McKinsey have started taking over marketing, while the Big Four of auditors are now specializing towards Information Technologies.”

“Complete universalization – this is the realistic state of the market today,” – adds Gepra’s head of the transformation process, Soso Galumashvili.

The team at Gepra assumes that the transformation process, which they began three months ago, will take four more months to complete. At this stage, the company has finished primary strategic work and, starting from the New Year, Gepra will start adopting niche fields in consulting.

The company is not getting specific on the types of services and products that will be added to their portfolio, but they are confirming that the aforementioned will definitely go beyond PR and marketing communication services.

“We grew, and in that growth we accumulated experience that will allow us to issue a completely new value proposition. As a result of our analytical work and extensive research, we managed to find the exact vacant niches that, on one hand, have not been occupied, and on the other – are poised to gain high market demand in the nearest future. We view Gepra as a pioneer setting new trends on Georgia’s professional service providing market, whilst remaining a leader in the PR & Marketing Communications field,” – stated Soso Galumashvili.

According to him, the main target groups for the ongoing transformations within the company are the organization’s service consumers, who will see a much more streamlined, accessible, and flexible set of products, along with an assurance of their utmost inclusion in all stages of project implementation.

“Gepra is changing, it is changing from a boutique agency into a consulting “niche buster” company. 15 years of experience and a clear indicator of growth are the best foundations for carrying out such transformations.” – stated Eka Zhvania.